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le4t #34/1.4e,.
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Harvard professor uses Jewish
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One of the most significant ideas the author explores is the ability
to overcome fear of death.
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Stephen Greenblatt at the National Book Awards last November:
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it
a
few years ago, Stephen
Greenblatt was asked to
write on Vilna (also known
as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania)
for the Nextbook series. However,
realizing he did not have the requisite
scholarly tools to summon up Vilna's
Yiddish culture, Greenblatt ended up
revealing a different lost (and recov-
ered) world —and won the 2011
National Book Award in the process.
Greenblatt's The Swerve: How the
World Became Modern (W.W. Norton;
$26.95) took the honor in nonfic-
tion amid 441 entries in its category.
The Harvard English professor's new
volume is about a Latin poem, On
the Nature of Things, by the ancient
Roman poet Lucretius.
Poggio Bracciolini, a humanist
book hunter, rediscovered the poem
in a 15th-century German monastery.
Greenblatt argues that although one
poem by itself could not be "respon-
sible for an entire intellectual, moral
and social transformation:' it was part
of an important "swerve" of the world
of ideas in a new direction.
One of Lucretius' ideas was that
individual particles swerve (meaning,
turned aside, or be turned aside from
a straight course) into existence with
minimal motion. This movement,
called "clinamen," "declination" or
"inclination:' is the source of free will.
The value of seeking pleasure and
avoiding pain, as well as the notion
that "understanding the nature of
things generates deep wonder:' are
other central tenets of this ancient
poem — the subject of Greenblatt's
book.
One of the most significant ideas
Greenblatt explores is the ability to
overcome fear of death. In his intro-
duction, he describes the significance
of the words Lucretius said while
growing up with a Jewish mother who
was petrified of dying: "Death is noth-
ing to us:'
These words held a radical signifi-
cance in the deeply Christian world of
Renaissance Europe and were desta-
bilizing, Greenblatt writes, shifting the
views of many in that culture.
Walter Englert — translator of
Lucretius' poem (On the Nature of
Things; Focus Publishing: 2003) and
a classics professor at Reed College in
Oregon — thinks Greenblatt's argu-
ment is on the mark.
"Finding Lucretius' poem in Latin,
which brilliantly sets out an atomistic
view of the universe that argues for
the naturalistic unfolding of the uni-
verse, without divine direction, and for
the mortality of the soul, was a bit of
a shock, as Greenblatt points out, and
fit in nicely with the soon-to-be-devel-
oped views of Copernicus and Galileo:'
Englert told JointMedia News Service.
Englert adds that the fact that
Lucretius' philosophy was in poetic
form meant that "once rediscovered,
it could be recommended for copying
and reading because of the beauty of
the poetry, even though the doctrines
in it [might be considered] 'wrong."
Though Greenblatt is certainly con-
cerned with ideas and their impact in
this book, what gives the volume its
potency is what his friend, architect
Moshe Safdie, described in a phone
interview. Safdie told JointMedia News
Service that The Swerve is written like
a "detective story" that the reader does
not want to put down.
Greenblatt recounts the journey of
Poggio — from an important bureau-
crat in the papal service to an inde-
pendent humanist book hunter —